Month: July 2015

Nicholas Negroponte, founder of the MIT Media Lab, pushes the edge of the information revolution as an inventor, thinker and angel investor.

In this TED talk, Negroponte recounts the last 30 years of technology. He highlights his predictions from the 1970s and 80s that were originally dismissed, but are ubiquitous today. He also leaves us with a fascinating prediction – we will ingest information through our blood stream in the future.

Ingestibles are especially intriguing to me because it’s a technology that has the potential to be transformational. We are moving from a world where we carry technology, to a world where we wear technology, and more recently to a world where we can now ingest it. At this point, I don’t think we’re far off from Negroponte’s prediction becoming a reality.

In fact, healthcare-focused ingestibles have already hit the market. The FDA-approved Proteus pill uses a one-square-millimeter sensor to transmit important information about your health to your doctor or family member. Upon swallowing, the sensor is activated by electrolytes within the body. The pill then transmits a signal to a small patch worn on your torso and sends the data via Bluetooth to a designated smartphone.

When you think of this pill by itself, it may seem like a novelty, but when you consider the strides made in wearables and ingestibles along with the convergence of consumer products and specialized medical devices, it’s inevitable that we’re going to experience a structural change in our healthcare system.

I want to hear your predictions. How do you think ingestibles will be used in the future?